Given away last week as a press freebie at the 2012 Fuorisalone design expo in Milan, this cardboard camera – soon to be sold in IKEA stores – has a USB connector and can hold up to 40 photos on internal memory.
And, inevitably, two weird-looking extra ones you weren’t expecting.
Grow A Face is a random face generator. You chose one of eight faces, generating a new selection of faces ‘mutated’ from your selection.
Another choice, another selection, and so on.
Did you know that bananas cannot reproduce? That they are sterile hybrids created by a cheap low tech form of cloning?
Well we didn’t. We thought they were the actual fingers of banana monkeys. Shame on us.
The downside to this is that clones are, shall we say, not terribly genetically diverse. Turns out, a lack of genetic diversity is a great way to make yourself vulnerable to disease. Back in the 1950s, a fungus all but wiped out a variety of banana called the Gros Michael. Up until then, the Gros Michel had been the top-selling banana in the world. It was the banana your grandparents ate. You eat the Cavendish, a different variety that replaced Gros Michael largely on the strength of its resistance to the killer fungus.
The disease banana plantations now fear: Black Sigatoka, a different fungus that can kill trees and reduce yields in the survivors. The solution: Goldfinger, a new banana clone bred to resist Black Sigatoka.
And so farewell Cavendish, hello Goldfinger.
‘They were bigger in my day’, you’ll tell your grandchildren. ‘Sure there’s no aytin’ in these little yokes at all’.
The Dublin-born artist Louis le Brocquy (above with wife and fellow-artist Anne Madden and son Pierre in 2006) has died aged 95.
Ninety five.
Death Of Louis le Brocquy Announced (RTE)
From top: Yeats, Beckett, Bono, Heaney and Joyce by le Brocquy.
In Dingle/An Daingean, Co Kerry.
Via Marie Baker
Members of The United left Alliance lobbying members of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions to vote no in the fiscal compact treaty referendum this morning in Parnell Square, Dublin (including, top, ICTU economist Paul Sweeney and, second pic, Seamus Dooley, head of the NUJ).
ICTU Not expected To Give Collective Recommendation On Fiscal Treaty Referendum (RTE)
UPDATE: ICTU Declines To Take Treaty Stance (Irish Times)
(Laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVCdye2-vUQ
Wouldn’t it be amazing to sit aboard the International Space Station, watching Earth’s continents and oceans pass by as you orbit the planet? If a startup called Urthecast has its way, you’ll soon be able to replicate that experience from your computer, thanks to HD cameras mounted on the station to stream near real-time video of Earth 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It will be the first-ever HD streaming video feed of Earth from space, and will let viewers discern objects as small as one meter wide.
Responding to this article by Anne Harris, editor of The Sunday Independent, which claimed ‘hands-off’ editorial independence during the O’Reilly reign at INM, Vincent Browne writes today:
On March 4th a headline [in the Sunday Independent]: “Bertie sinks as house market goes under.”
… On April 8th: “Ahern missed boat on election” and inside another headline: “Will Bertie’s new Haughey gene cost FF the next election?”
…On April 15th: “Ahern denies air trip with a case of cash”.
But then, suddenly, there was a compete volte-face. And no explanation.
On April 22nd, 2007, there was an exclusive facilitatory interview with Ahern on stamp duty “reform”.
…On May 6th, 2007, a front page story under the headline: “Most voters want Bertie as Taoiseach despite money issues.”
…On May 13th there was another interview with Ahern in which he spoke about his personal finances under the headline: “It’s all related to my judicial separation.” There was no challenge to his claims.
So how come this spectacular turnaround? This could all be a compete coincidence, of course, but during the week that the extraordinary U-turn was undertaken – this was the week beginning April 16th, 2007 – a private undisclosed meeting took place between Tony O’Reilly and Ahern…
About-Turn On Ahern Lacked Independent Thinking (Vincent Browne, Irish Times)
Meanwhile: Swedish Director Steps Down From INM Board (Samantha McCaughren, TheDailyBusinessPost.com)
(DCU)
Outside an industrial estate in Tralee this morning (from Aisling O’Brien).
TUD?
Sound familiar?
(laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland)
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